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Because it’s been a long time, because it’s turned into a rarity, let us begin this look-back at a game — a season, alas — with a moment of sheer Maple Leaf brilliance.

Toronto has just killed off four minutes in penalties to David Bolland, who compounded his interference violation along the mid-boards by throwing a gratuitous shove at some innocuous Red Wing in the end-boards.

One might have expected the Leafs to collapse in that extended short-handed situation because they were so very fragile in at that juncture, reeling from a sudden reversal of fortune in Game No. 76, 2013-2014. Astonishingly, that didn’t happen.

And now here comes young Morgan Rielly, all of 20 years old but with a rapidly maturing hockey brain between his ears, whooshing down the right wing, carrying a team’s fading hopes in every stride of his D-man rush. A red shirt interrupts his progress but as Rielly falls, in an entirely heroic effort, he sweeps the puck towards the net — the kind of damn-you second gasp that has become entirely too rare ’round these Leaf parts.

Joffrey Lupul, who’s been point-blank robbed by Jimmy Howard already once on this evening, is exactly where he needs to be, redirecting the rubber behind the Detroit netminder, low on the blocker side.

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With one minute and three seconds left in the second period, Toronto has pulled back within a goal of the Red Wings, still leading at 3-2. Close enough that the Air Canada Centre crowd can suspend disbelief, cross-fingers, eyes-crossed, whatever, in the feeble hope, the yearning, that their team might yet salvage the night, salvage the year, regardless of math and statistical probabilities.

Pause it there for a moment — before the clock ran out on a Saturday night and a 4-2 loss.

“Really good play,” Lupul would say later, of the Rielly setup. “In the second period alone, he made three really good passes to me. That’s the only one I managed to get in the net.

“It’s good to see in a huge game like this he was a difference-maker for us. That’s hugely positive to see in a young player.”

Rielly & Lupul: The stuff, possibly, of a future Leaf captain, if some foolhardy GM doesn’t trade him away in a down-the-line playoff bid Hail Mary; the stuff, arguably, of a Leaf, in Lupul’s case, who should have been Toronto’s captain right now.

Discuss among yourselves. Heaven knows the guy with the “C” on his chest fell afoul of another snake-bit evening, for those who are hell-bent on crucifying the “C” right off him. On this occasion, however, it was more a matter of mischance — the puck that he blocked with his foot, that bounced right back out towards hotshot scrub Gustav Nyquist, that was wristed behind Jonathan Bernier before Phaneuf scarcely had time to blink.

But no, let’s not dwell on that now. Let’s not dwell on any of it. Time enough for that through the uselessness of the next half-dozen games — even if the Leafs aren’t yet eliminated from the post-season, number-crunching-wise — and the summer months beyond that.

“This is probably the first time, after this game, that things are looking a little bleak for us,” said a clearly distraught Lupul. “Obviously the skid was bad but other teams kept losing as we went along. Coming into this game, we knew we pretty much had to have it. That’s not to say other teams won’t continue to lose but it’s a lot to ask.

“We went from a position where we (are) in control of our own destiny to sitting at home cheering against other teams.”

Geez, though. Geez Louise. Eight defeats in a row and Toronto hasn’t done that kind of consecutive-L since the 1985-86 season. And there have been plenty of really rotten Leaf teams in between.

This group, though, wasn’t supposed to be rotten to the core. Indeed, it wasn’t anywhere near rotten a mere fortnight ago, with a seven-point cushion on a wild-card playoff berth, guys like Lupul talking about, you know, climbing up to second in the division. It all went to hell in a handbasket lickety-split.

The little picture, in this game, against but one of the rival clubs Toronto would need to pass by had they any delusion of playoff inclusion: More of what’s ailed the team through these recent weeks, if out of customary order.

It would not be entirely correct to state that 92 seconds decided the season for Toronto. A 20-minute second period — which looked and acted a whole lot like the Leafs’ ghastly first periods of late — pretty much put paid to this affair.

Let us recap the oddities that stood out, though:

Leafs came out with jump and orneriness, their best start in ages.

Toronto scored first, and just for the second time in their past 10 games. They seemed to have corrected their first-frame willies.

The third/fourth unit of Jay McClement-Nikolai Kulemin-Troy Bodie was not only on the ice to generate that goal, scored on a slap shot by Cody Franson, but kept coming over the boards as coach Randy Carlyle seemed atypically inclined to roll four lines, Nazem Kadri dropped to the bottom troika.

The defence was not conceding quite as much and collapsing back on their goalie.

It all augured well on a night when winning was imperative. All around them, teams have been clinching while the Leafs have been double-clutching.

But then Jake Gardiner can’t handle a pass on the power play, Darren Helm goes off on a breakaway stopped by Bernier, only to have Gardiner’s hesitation on the rebound provide Helm with a second opportunity — this time burying it for the short-handed marker, the 11th Toronto has given up.

So, 92 seconds later, along comes Nyquist to take advantage of the horrors that have beset Phaneuf for his 26th goal.

Helm struck for his second in the second, for his third in the third, first hat trick of his career.

So, Hero Helm.

And rewind for the Leafs: kept to three goals or less for the 10th consecutive game, losers of their eighth consecutive game, about to be sent off beyond the playoff pale, boos cascading down.

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